President Obama recently called on us to make high quality early education available to every child in America. He went on to say “let’s do what works.”

Well, Mr. President, Minnesota has a plan that works.

President Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was in Minnesota this month and we had a chance to visit with him about why “the Minnesota Model” of pre-kindergarten education should be become a model for the nation.

Minnesota’s effort started with the business community spending $20 million in private funding to pilot a program, rigorously evaluate it, and bring it to scale. We tested, stumbled, learned, and adjusted. Now we have an affordable, efficient, effective, market-based approach that other states can easily bring to scale and replicate.

We explained to Secretary Duncan that our Minnesota Model empowers parents, allowing them to choose from a full range of licensed, rated providers, be they center-based, school-based, home-based, faith-based or Head Start. In contrast, some in Washington have suggested that government should mandate that a pre-K child have a specific slot at a specific elementary school for specific hours. That kind of rigid approach just doesn’t work for many families.

In Minnesota, we use a more flexible and empowering model. We have the private and public providers, all of whom have agreed to adopt K-readiness best practices, competing for the business of parents. Our system uses market forces, not bureaucratic mandates, to drive its kindergarten–readiness system. This ensures families have a full range of high quality choices to fit their individual wants and needs.

Importantly, Minnesota parents are armed with Parent Aware Ratings — a Consumer Reports-like rating system that helps them find providers who are using kindergarten-readiness best practices. Spotting these practices can be very difficult for most parents, but the clear, concise star-based ratings make it easy.

Minnesota is also unique in that it is holding providers accountable for kindergarten- readiness outcomes. Providers who want to serve scholarship families must use rigorously evaluated practices that have proven to be successful in getting all children ready for kindergarten.

The dilemma every state faces, of course, is that not every family can afford to access high quality. Therefore, Minnesota is funding more than 4,000 scholarships to move low-income children into high quality education. There are many ways to help low-income children, but the magic of our market-based scholarship approach is that it helps all kids, not just scholarship kids. The best practices providers adopt in order to win the business of scholarship parents end up helping all of the children those providers serve.

In this way, scholarships have a multiplier effect. For instance, in Minnesota’s pilot projects, our business community paid for 650 scholarships, but those scholarships incented providers serving 24,000 children to adopt kindergarten-readiness best practices. In other words, investing in helping 650 scholarship kids ultimately helped 37 times as many nonscholarship children benefit from the resulting quality improvements. That’s a very efficient way to invest in kids.

In contrast to some proposals, Minnesota’s model also doesn’t require that we invest money into buildings. It simply requires providers to meet certain standards, gives families the purchasing power and clear information, and lets the market forces of supply and demand do the rest.

New Horizon Academy is one example of how supply and demand works. Because Minnesota’s new scholarships created new demand in low-income neighborhoods, New Horizon invested in a four-star-rated program in a low-income neighborhood of St. Paul. Scholarships created the consumer demand, prompting a business to bring a high quality early education program to a neighborhood where high quality used to be scarce.

Secretary Duncan isn’t the only leader who needs to support the Minnesota Model. Minnesota congressional leaders such as Rep. John Kline and Sen. Al Franken both serve on committees with jurisdiction on this issue, and both therefore need to promote the groundbreaking Minnesota Model.

Historically, Minnesota has used investment in human capital to create one of the most vibrant economies and societies in the nation. With scholarships and the Parent Aware Ratings, Minnesota is once again on the educational forefront. We are investing in education at a time of life when the human brain is developing at its fastest pace, and when the long-term benefits are greatest. And we are investing in the most flexible and efficient manner possible.

Minnesota’s pre-K reforms represent the next “Minnesota Miracle” for strengthening our human capital investment portfolio. If Washington can learn the right lessons from our Minnesota Model, this can be a miracle for kids across the nation.

Art Rolnick is a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and a current senior fellow at Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Chad Dunkley is the chief operating officer of New Horizon Academy, which operates 62 early learning centers in Minnesota, and president of the Minnesota Child Care Association.

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